Adventures in Parenting & Marriage: The Cummings Family Holiday Update!

Happy New Year Everyone!!

We hope everyone had a great Christmas and New Year's Eve! We spent ours up visiting family in Maypearl and Athens Texas. Sterling's immediate family (Tammy, John, Kristen, and J) lives up in Maypearl (near Dallas) and his grandmother Eva Jo and uncle Larry live in Athens. We had a great time seeing and catching up with everyone and we played a lot of games which is always fun :) We both like to play board and card games but often find it hard to do when you only have two players so it was great to get some good games going! I learned a bunch of new games - Settlers of Catan, Rummikub, and Poker. I did decently in them for just learning how to play them - I wooped Sterling in all of the hands that the two of us had to "face off" in poker :) I can always tell when he's bluffing :) He ended up winning the whole game though because he conned J into going "all in" and got all of his chips. He was pretty happy with his pile of poker chips :)

For Christmas, Santa Tammy brought us lots of great gifts. Santa brought me some Victoria's Secret, eyelash curlers, some Dr. Scholl's type things to put in high heels, makeup and a really nice scarf. Sterling got Seasons 1-4 of The Office, a cool flashlight, some comfy socks, and the t-shirt that came in the box of The Hangover DVD, which is pretty funny. I also got some pepper spray and a tazer to keep myself safe and we got a lot of cash to put towards date nights and/or an anniversary vacation :) Santa Donna came during Thanksgiving and brought Sterling a little webber grill and a few new work shirts, and I got a new purse, makeup, perfume, and a few things for the house. We are very lucky to have such great family on both sides who like to spoil us like they do!

Sterling got me two new pairs of nice shoes to match some of my dresses that I haven't worn due to lack of shoes (I know, I know....anyone who knows me I'm sure will find this hard to believe! But it's true - this dress in particular was hard to find shoes that match it!) He also made me/us a super-charged new budget, which of course I really liked and had been wanting to do for a few months now. Organization tools make me happy and satisfy my neurotic side, lol :) I bought him some new speakers that he has been wanting to go with his TV - I think he's pretty happy with his little man corner of the living room. We have it set up where we can wirelessly play our music too so we both have enjoyed that a lot :) He duped me a little bit on them though, haha. He was telling me about them and saying "yeah they've got two 8" sub-woofers"....in my mind I was thinking "oh...the speakers are only 8" tall? I can live with that!" Needless to say, I was a little surprised by the size of the box that showed up at our front door! I had quite the time lugging that thing inside...and the speakers are DEFINITELY not 8"!! But that's alright, they sound pretty good and Sterling likes them a lot. I'll just have to find some tall plants to hide them a little bit, haha :)

Here are some more pictures from Christmas with Sterling's family and extended family:

For New Year's Eve, we made dinner reservations on Open Table and went to Morton's Steak House in the Galleria area. We both got the steak and seafood NYE special, along with some salad, drinks, and desserts. It was very good and it was nice to get out on the town for a nice date :)